I was surprised to discover the 19th hole at the World Amateur Handicap Championships in Myrtle Beach is a lot like the annual PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando - only with loads of free alcohol and fewer saleswomen in cheerleader outfits. Some big names in golf were on hand. Dave Pelz had an entire army of minions selling short game secrets. Annika Sorenstam made an appearance for Cutter & Buck, much like she did in Orlando. There is a big demo area on the left end where all the big manufacturers are selling drivers. In the middle of the expo floor, ...

Take 120 players competing in stroke play split into foursomes (most holes have an A and B group) and put them on a Pete Dye-designed course and you’ve got a recipe for a tidy and efficient 6.5-hour round of golf. Such was the case today at the Dye Barefoot course in the World Amateur Handicap Championships. Many of the Grand Strand’s 100-plus golf courses usually pack foursomes in pretty good on any day (I play more five-hour casual rounds here than anywhere else in the world) but the World Amateur makes the illusion of a five-hour round of golf feel ...

Some professional athletes cheat with steroids, amateur golfers sandbag. The World Amateur Handicap Championship in Myrtle Beach is notorious for “sandbaggers". I’ve been analyzing some scores, online at the World Am website and also at the 19th hole. I’ve been talking to participants from various flights, getting their opinion on whether their particular flight is tainted with these scoundrels. The general consensus seems to be the higher the flight, the higher the sandbagger infestation. This makes sense. The higher you say your handicap is, the easier it is to score better than expected. For instance, WorldGolf.com’s resident duffer Chris Baldwin ...

While critics shed their two cents on the controversial new FedEx Cup playoffs, 3,778 die-hard amateur golfers have bigger things on their minds: The PGA Tour Superstore World Amateur Handicap Championships, starting Monday morning. The “World Am” is amateur golf’s greatest spectacle: a four-day event spread out over 70 Myrtle Beach-area courses. It’s a tried-and-true tournament with a fanatic, loyal following. Golfers of all abilities have a shot at winning the overall prize, from scratch golfers to 36.4 handicaps. Then there is the famous “World’s largest 19th hole” that takes place each night at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center. It’s part ...

I’m thumbing through the new Golf Magazine World Top 100 Ranking. I like the world rankings better than the U.S. version, because just about all of the world courses offer at least limited public play, versus the private-heavy American list that only helps to justify why country clubs can demand $100K initiation to new members because of it’s ranking. This also explains why I’ve played so many more top world courses than the American ones. Of course, we all know these rankings, despite all the mathematical categories involved, aren’t perfect. How do you judge man-made, multi-million dollar marvels like Whistling ...

I know Barclays and the PGA Tour are feeling slighted this week as Tiger Woods ditches the inaugural event of the FedEx Cup, making it just another second-tier tournament on the schedule Tiger won’t compete in, so he can sail his yacht or sky dive or whatever a young bazillionaire does on an off week. Of course, the most insulting thing about Tiger’s WD is that he’ll probably still win the FedEx Cup despite missing the first event. Maybe in 2008, if the FedEx Cup is still around, he’ll try to win after withdrawing from the first two. But before ...

Wales is self-admittedly not as developed as a global tourist destination compared to Scotland, Ireland and England. It’s a trade many towns and hotels are learning as they go. “Wales is what Scotland and Ireland were twenty years ago,” is a common saying used around here. Tour operators tell me B&B’s in particular can be hit-and-miss: four and five-star joints are usually top-notch, while others offer little more than a room and tell you where the kitchen is. That’s a far cry from Ireland, where every other house on any road you drive down is a B&B, and most have ...

Wales has some considerable ground to make up before becoming a formidable rival to neighboring Scotland and Ireland’s golf tourism, especially with North Americans. I haven’t run into any others here in five days and most clubs tell me few pass through, though they do see a little more than before. With their first Ryder Cup three years away, the future looks bright for golf in Wales, not only with tourism but within their own ranks. If the amount of kids I’ve seen embracing the game at local clubs is any kind of foreshadowing, this little nook of the U.K. ...

In discussions I’ve had with other golf industry people about Wales, one particular course has come up more than any other. It isn’t Ryder Cup host Celtic Manor or the country’s most prestigious links Royal Porthcawl. “Be sure to see Pennard,” they all said. In a recent interview with architect Tom Doak, he named it among his five best “undiscovered links” in the Isles (to put things in perspective, he considers Scotland’s out-of-the-way Machrihanish closer to mainstream than hidden). I finally saw Pennard Golf Club today and was blown away. The course opened in 1896 and seems to have bypassed ...

Wales desperately wants to host the world’s top international golf events. So much so, they built the first golf course specifically designed for the Ryder Cup Matches - which will come to the country for the first time in 2010 at the Celtic Manor Resort. It even bears the transparent name: the “Ryder Cup Course". The design was a collaboration of minds from the European PGA, architects and tour pros and can max out at over 7,500 yards. The goal was to create a spectator-friendly, drama-filled golf course with an exciting finish full of strategic options. Officials describe the ...

Welsh Tour operators tell me roughly 90% of their guests have been on a Scotland or Ireland golf trip before Wales. It’s stiff competition in the British Isles, and this country, on the southwest end of England is making more and more noise. There is no shortage of golf here: over 200 courses in a country of about 3 million people. 19th century links like Royal Porthcawl, Tenby and Pennard are as old as nearly anywhere, and I’ve heard great things. They’re also much cheaper than heavier-trafficked Scottish and Irish courses. The Celtic Manor Resort, which will host the ...

The WGC Bridgestone Invitational wasn’t the only big win for Tiger Woods Sunday. He also won ESPN’s Who’s Now?, an interactive quest to determine the world’s most “now” athlete. I’m not the first blogger to rip Who’s Now? Kiel Christianson whined about the coverage cutting into his essential Brewers-Marlins highlights two weeks ago. But his complaints were of taste. Mine are of deceit, foul play, and possibly the greatest triumph of marketing since P.T. Barnum. Viewers of SportsCenter will note Tiger won, while Lebron James finished in second. Both finalists of course are products of The Swoosh. Look, we can ...

Tadd Fujikawa and Michelle Wie shared common youthful dreams: escaping the grim, hopeless prison of the Hawaiian Islands for a brighter future in pro golf. Wie’s path - after a promising start - has been rocky, which is more than Fuji can say so far. 16-year-old munchkin Fujikawa made his first PGA Tour appearance as a professional this week at the Reno-Tahoe Open. He shot an opening 6-over - which is worse than it sounds given how easy the course was playing and considering the Tour’s better golfers are duking it out with Tiger at Firestone - not with Dicky ...

I’ve been silent on the “Steroids in Golf” debate. Mostly because it isn’t so much a “debate” as it is a blind witch hunt. All of this coverage seems to have been fabricated and forced by the press in search of a gritty tour underbelly that doesn’t exist. There is no precedent that suggests golf is as tainted as baseball or cycling. There is very little reason to believe the integrity of the game is somehow being compromised by performance-enhancing drugs. Gary Player’s comments at the British Open were horribly ill-timed and I’ve got to side with his perturbed countryman ...